by D K Girl
A distinctly unpleasant doubt now wound its way through Eron’s mind. He had not questioned the biotechnician Gwen Weylen’s assurances that this visit had been approved by Captain Nex.
‘Seriously, Blake,’ Kira called, ‘I’m not following you. You’re acting even weirder than normal, and that’s too much weird for me.’
Eron’s smile reached his lips unbidden. He quickly tilted his head, ensuring Kira did not notice his amusement. It would not do to give her any opportunity to engage with him too deeply. When she drew too close, her presence released an unpredictability within him that Eron abhorred. He focused on the departing Technician. Cym, the Syranian medic, had expressed some concern about her health, and it was not difficult to understand why. The woman showed definite signs of undernourishment. But it did not hinder her pace. The Beckworths were not graced with height, yet Blake’s short legs were carrying her at a formidable speed across the chamber. In four more strides she would reach the first of three rectangular rooms which jutted out from the far wall of the cavern. The central room was the largest, and she was clearly headed for its unimposing door. Each room had a rather lack-lustre name: Tech Room One, Two, or Three.
‘I must ask that you divulge your plans, Miss Beckworth. I cannot be a part of –’ Eron flicked a sideways glance. Kira had abandoned her stance on staying still, and walked far too close. He should not even be in her vicinity, let alone alongside her. But all he could focus on was the jacket she wore. Obviously not her own.
‘Step one of the entire reason your people are here at all lies in that room over there.’ Blake pointed to the central tech room. ‘Azrael arrived last night. And no matter how much you bluster about protocol, I know you won’t leave, Eron. I know you want to see him. So let’s not waste any more time on that.’
Now it was Eron’s turn to stop. He drew back his shoulders. ‘Azrael?’
‘He needed a name. No one seemed to know or care what his real one was.’ Blake turned to face him. ‘So I gave him one.’ Green-grey veins formed in a small cluster at her temples. She held a distant look, one she was well practised in. Her inability to focus on general conversation was a trait Eron knew drove Kira to distraction. Eron dug his fingertips into his thighs. ‘I see.’ Though he did not, not really.
It was superfluous to give the creature a name. Ereshkigal sent them a lesser being for the First Meld, a soul of no import in her realm. One that would not be missed should there be any catastrophic failure of the carapace, which was a viable and probable result. The gallu of Kur could not long survive in this godless corporeal world without a shielding. The metal shells constructed by Cym and the Technician— made of Telteriun and blessed by Lahar, one of the last Living Gods—were not unlike those worn by human astronauts; life preservers capable of sustaining life in an environment otherwise uninhabitable. Even the Four – by far the most powerful of all the gallu – would suffer if unshielded on Earth, and without the carapaces would soon have to abandon this world if they intended to survive. The First Meld was a test run designed to reveal any flaws.
‘Right, well I don’t see shit,’ Kira said. ‘Who the fuck is Azrael? And has he brought booze with him?’ She scratched at her head, and the movement shifted her jacket open, exposing her hole-ridden shirt. A sudden lightheadedness gripped Eron. He’d removed that shirt from her body once, the red bra beneath, too. The air grew heated, and Eron adjusted the top buckle on his vest.
‘I need you sober.’ Blake glared at Kira. ‘I need you to pay attention.’
‘Pay attention to what, dear sister? It’s been so long since you called I thought maybe you’d died down here. That would have made two of us.’
Kira smiled at her own humour. The curve to her lips created a dimple in her left cheek, but the memory of the day of the accident brought no mirth for Eron. He recalled the cool and detached way the captain had declared the death of Blake’s father a serendipitous event, and Kira’s horrific injuries an opportunity. The eager way Tamas had agreed. One way to stem Blake’s increasing concerns about the Syranians’ true intentions – despite her obsession with their technology and her own lust for knowledge – was to make her irreversibly indebted to those she had begun to doubt. In truth, they needed her expertise. The captain and Cym were adept with advanced technology, but the nuances of humanity required a certain finesse.
And so, they had brought Blake’s sister, her only surviving family member, back to her.
‘Shut up, Kira.’ Blake wiped at her brow. ‘Are you sober enough to remember this?’
Blake stood at the top of the short flight of stairs leading into the tech room. She tilted her head to look down at her sister. Her large amber eyes were focused. She was present. And, if Eron wasn’t reading her entirely wrong, there was a certain melancholy in her expression.
‘Depends how memorable it’s going to be,’ Kira said. ‘I mean is there going to be skinny dipping in that creepy-ass pool over there? That could be memorable.’
‘Keep your clothes on, Kira. You are not in Tahiti now.’
There was a moment of silence. An unusual occurrence for Kira. Something about Blake’s comment had caught her off guard.
‘You saw that?’ Kira said. ‘That was a private fucking island. Who the hell got a photo? Jesus –’
Eron stared down at his booted feet again. While he had been restricted to the lower levels of the Facility, Kira had not even remained in the country. It should have angered him. Instead, Eron chased the image of her naked body out of his head.
‘No one got a photo. It wasn’t the press who knew you were there,’ Blake said. ‘I had you watched as a precaution. Now please, come on.’
Though Blake dismissed the conversation with a wave of her hand, Eron tensed at Kira’s expression. When she frowned that way, closing up her left eye slightly more than the right, he knew that the intercourse would not be concluded anytime soon. Arguments enlivened her, she seemed to hunt them down and take a stranglehold on them. The sisters’ disputes had been frequent and vocal in earlier days before Blake had distanced herself, and he did not lament their loss.
‘Watched as a precaution? Blake, do you have any idea how fucked up it is that you don’t see anything wrong with spying on me?’ Kira’s vehement lift of her arms seemed to throw her off balance. Eron crossed his own, determined not to reach and steady her.
‘You’re a mess, Kira.’ Blake’s melancholy had left her. There was something hard there now.
‘Well fuck you very much, but I’m not the one watching my sister have sex on a beach.’
Eron shifted on his feet. His inner voice was a solid chorus of sound, telling him to turn and leave. Now. But another part of him, that part that betrayed him so consistently, deadened the cacophony and rooted him to the spot.
‘I didn’t watch you,’ Blake said. ‘I have better things to do. I had information relayed.’
‘Oh, that’s okay then. Not. Jesus. Did Tamas authorise this? The dude needs to deal with some personal frustrations and use porn sites like everyone else.’
The pulse of tension bouncing between the sisters was a palpable thing. But where Kira made it physical in the clench of her fists, Blake held it all in her eyes. Eron felt as invisible now as any time during his solitude. He considered moving away, stepping closer to the Tier and letting its force replace this discomfort.
‘Grow up, Kira. You gave us every reason to watch you.’ Though she didn’t look at him, Eron felt the jab of Blake’s meaning.
‘Holy crap, Blake, you couldn’t just ask me where I was going? Or call me? I would have sent you photos if I’d known you gave a shit. But you’ve said three words to me in about a year, so I figured I was good.’
‘I don’t care about your photos.’ Blake pressed her palm to the sensor, and the tech room door opened. Eron frowned, certain he’d noticed a trembling in her fingertips. ‘I don’t care about the beach you’re on or the bikini you’re not wearing. None of that matters. It is pathetic and trivial. I
just wanted to know you were alive, that’s all I needed. That’s all I have time for.’
‘Wow. Just, wow.’ Kira shook her head. ‘Those tactfulness classes are really working for you, aren’t they? Sister of the year right there. Well you know what, I don’t care about the new toys you’re building down here. I don’t care about your robot dogs or whatever other mechanical pieces of shit you’re building. So I’m just going to go back up where the sun is shining and normal people are having normal fucking days.’
Blake turned away, but not before Eron caught the brittleness in her expression. She was exhausted, that was plain. ‘Go. It was a mistake to ask you here.’
‘Yep, probably was. Sound the bells, ring the alarms, Blake Beckworth made a mistake.’ Kira wiggled her fingers, prosthetic metal digits moving with a fluidity no actual fingers could rival.
With all Blake had achieved, it was easy to forget she was completely human, but Eron saw it in this moment. Everything about Blake was leaden: the way she braced herself against the doorframe, the rigidity of her stance. Tension was holding her upright. Perhaps Kira saw it also, because she did not leave. And her voice was gentle when she next spoke.
‘B, I’m sober enough, okay? Barely touched a drop.’
It might have been convincing if not for the vague slurring of the word ‘drop’. Blake did not reply. She stepped deeper into the tech room, and the door closed.
Kira’s shoulder’s drooped. ‘What is with her, E? She looks like hell.’
She turned, too quickly, and her inebriated state sent her wildly off balance. Eron’s arms raised before he could halt himself. He embraced her. Their height differential saw her feet lifted off the ground. She tilted her head, and her breath was warm against the base of his throat. The scent of alcohol reached him.
‘Ah, Eron. You always know how to make a girl feel better.’ Kira laughed, a light mockery in her tone. Flippant with word and deed, she was as unsettling as she had ever been.
Eron needed to let go, move away from her right now. His hand drifted down her back, tracing the familiar curve. Her amber eyes made their soft way over his face. Ludicrous. How this diminutive creature could blur the world around him. A soul of Kur lay just a few paces away, yet he was caught here, barricaded from that miracle by this disorderly emotion.
Enough.
He let her go, but Kira moved faster than her current state should allow and wrapped her arms around his neck. She dangled there, feet off the ground, hanging against him like a strange human blanket.
‘Kira –’
‘Just one more second, okay? I know, I know, no touchy-feely, but indulge me. No one’s here to see – the fun police are at prayer duty, right? I’m sorry you got ass-kicked over it all, I’m really sorry. I promise just this, then no more.’
Eron tilted forward, bending so that Kira’s feet touched the ground. Her hands slipped down to wrap around his waist. Good judgement dictated that he push her away. He was the usual disappointment to himself. They stood pressed together, the top of her head soft against his mouth. The air was thick, and his senses chaotic with the touch of her.
‘She’s not doing so good, is she, E?’ she mumbled against his chest. ‘Is she okay?’
He breathed into the black strands of her hair. ‘Your sister is strong.’
‘Yeah, but she’s human.’
She took a long, slow breath, and he felt the press of her breasts against him. Another opportunity to let go arrived and then slid away. But he promised himself, just this, then no more. As it should be. As it should have always been.
‘See, just a few seconds. Like I promised.’ Kira slid her arms free, brushing her fingertips across his waist. She gave him a lopsided smile, and then she was following after her sister as steadily as could be expected of her. The door opened, then closed again, removing her from his view. But Eron did not follow straight away. Taking a moment to find a decorum he would not lose again.
Blake - 6
Blake rushed to the back of the tech room, pulling a slender glass vial from a stainless steel drawer. Kira would follow. There was little doubt of that, so Blake had to make the most of the momentary solitude. Her shaking hands caused the vial to clatter against her teeth. Perhaps the tension of the morning had gotten to her. The sudden desire for the Waters had caught her off-guard. The liquid seared through her mouth, tracing a warm path down her throat. Blake tensed, bracing for the heat that would come with the movement of the Waters into her stomach and through her blood. The drive to suck back more was nearly insurmountable, but there could only be this – the barest portion – while Cym investigated more thoroughly, exactly what the Waters were doing to Blake’s cells. Nothing good. That much was clear. So infuriatingly obvious. The weight loss and the unhealthy pallor of her skin might as well be a flashing neon sign – Blake Beckworth is unwell.
Sound the bells, ring the alarms, indeed. Kira was correct. She had made a mistake. Several, most likely, but the repercussions of this one were closest to home. She’d indulged Tamas’s desire to convince her his boss truly was a supernatural being. A god. He’d wanted her to see what he saw, experience the events he believed he experienced. And in a moment of weakness, Blake had allowed herself to want to believe, too.
Several months ago, she’d sipped the Waters. The hallucinogenic trip was impressive, but so were those reported by users of DMT and LSD. The experiment hardly constituted a declaration of the existence of divinity. And the repercussions of the experiment were dire. Whatever immunity Tamas had to the effects of the alien liquid, Blake did not share them. So, now this. A gradual but irrefutable deterioration of her cells. A decline only slowed by a minimal but regular intake of the very Water that had impaired them to begin with. Cym, the only one who knew of the situation, was doing what he could to find a solution. In the interim, Blake was a dying addict.
She tossed the vial into a nearby trash can, making sure the evidence of her incapacity fell beneath the rest of the rubbish. Hidden. Her hands already steady. The irony didn’t escape her. She’d lectured Kira for years about her addictions, the drink, the drugs, the sex. The media had been merciless about pointing out what a fuck-up Kira was compared to her, and how Blake’s brains had funded Kira’s veins – one of the cleverer headlines – for years. Yet, here Blake was. The furtive junkie, struggling not to think about the next time she could take a sip, one eye constantly on her watch. If Kira was in remotely anywhere near this much pain, then she was even stronger than Blake had accounted for. A good thing, considering what she was going to ask of her.
Blake shifted her newly arrived clarity to the control panel in front of her. From the moment Tamas had left, she’d been slowly dropping the inhibitor levels on the carapace. She glanced at the body. Azrael. Eron might have been unimpressed with the naming, but the Syranians could not dictate everything Blake did. She would have this, at least. Pride swelled, as it did every time she glanced at the perfectly formed humanoid. The machines surrounding him emitted cautioning beeps. A message flashed on the small screen, advising that containment dosage was low, asking if she wished to continue. She pressed in an affirmative.
The tech room door slid open and Kira stalked in.
‘Surprise,’ she declared. ‘All your dreams have come true, I decided to stay. Holy shitballs! Blake made herself a boyfriend.’ Clapping her hands, Kira danced up to the table where the carapace lay. ‘That is the prettiest robot I’ve ever seen.’
‘Move back, Kira. And stop talking bullshit.’
The girl had no capacity to take anything seriously. Pretty? No one called Michelangelo’s David or the Artemision Bronze ‘pretty’. They were works of art, superb in their perfection.
And, like Azrael, they were not robots.
For ease of access to his chest cavity, Blake had dressed Azrael only in a pair of pale-green linen pants, doctors’ scrubs she’d taken from the medical ward up on ground level. Very little of his slender, muscular body was hidden. Each swell of muscle an
d curve of bone was exquisite. Every strand of his black hair, caught in a loose ponytail at the nape, had a manufactured medulla, cortex, and cuticle. Fine vellus hair covered his skin, just as it would have if he were a living, breathing man. His skin itself was a carefully constructed shade, olive with a rich golden undertone, as though the sun touched him, even down here in the bowels of the Earth.
Eron entered the room, bending forward through the doorway to accommodate his height. He stopped just inside the door, and his eyes fixed on Azrael, the muscles in his sharp jaw working.
‘Is something wrong, Eron?’ Blake asked, fingers hovering over the control panel. The inhibitor gases that turned the carapace from a functioning work of art to a solid, immovable lump of Telteriun had dropped to a level that the machine deemed unwise.
The Syranian did not answer her. He seemed incapable of doing so. Eron shook his head side to side slowly. She’d seen similar expressions on the faces of his colleagues last night. Shock and awe. She liked to think it was for her design prowess. It wasn’t of course. She might be ill, but she was not stupid.
‘What are these guys for?’ Kira had not stepped away as she’d been instructed. And she poked her finger into Azrael’s shoulder. ‘Are they like sex toys or something? About time there was one for girls. Good for you, sis. This will bring in billions –’
‘For god’s sake, K. Grow up.’ Blake scowled. Her sister’s well-documented sexual appetite was voracious. Yet another trait they did not share.
An automated voice from the machine notified Blake of what she already saw: movement in Azrael’s right foot.
Kira shrieked. ‘Shit, it’s a real dude? You could have warned me.’ She wiped her hands against her jacket, finally stepping away from the bench.
‘It is not a human. And I did not give you permission to touch it.’ Cuffs held Azrael’s wrists in place, retarding any violent movement of his arms, but she’d not locked the restraints at his ankles. Blake tapped in a command to halt the withdrawal of the inhibitors any further.
